Under Construction. This section will be worked on when I have free time.
When St Paul Dispatch columnist Oliver Towne would describe my Great-Grandfather Joe Shiely Sr, he called him “Old St. Paul.”
The Shiely’s came to Minnesota at the dawn of the Civil War. Joe Shiely was born in St Paul in 1885. Son of a teamster, Joe Sr went on to found the J.L. Shiely Company, a concrete and aggregate company which helped build some of St Paul’s tallest buildings. As King Boreas VI, he traveled the country, literally singing the virtues of St Paul to anyone who would listen.
Despite laying the foundation for the streets and buildings of St Paul, there are no monuments to Joe Sr in the town he loved. No buildings bare his name. Not even a dead end street.
James Shiely (center) pictured with the team of horses used to pull the marble of the State Capitol from the river up to the building site. James’ son Joseph Shiely Sr is pictured as well.
Meet The Shiely’s
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Michael Shiely
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James Shiely
Teamster, Hauler who built Minnesota Capitol and Cathedral
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Joe Shiely Sr
Founder of the J.L. Shiely Company
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Joe Shiely Jr
CEO of the JL Shiely Company
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Kyle Shiely
Owner of this website
The Shiely family’s love of radio can be traced to a broadcast of the 1940’s St Paul Winter Carnival.
Joe Shiely was hear around the world that night, receiving telegraphs from across the U.S.
Years later, actual 45 albums of those broadcasts were recovered. On four pressed discs, only six minutes of audio were salvageable. Those six minutes included the NBC broadcast from that night. It was truly an amazing story.
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